This is Mental Health Awareness week and award winning actress Taraji P. Henson has launched a nonprofit organization, The Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation. The foundation, named in honor of her late father, focuses on erasing the stigma surrounding mental health issues, particularly in the African American community, per variety.com.
The outlet also notes how Henson’s son struggled with mental health after his father was murdered in 2003 and her father died two years later.
Taraji shared that her search for a psychiatrist for her son was challenging because she wanted “someone that he could trust, someone that looks like him and could understand his struggle” but her options “wouldn’t be African American and it wouldn’t get accomplished because he felt guilty for the things he was saying.”
Later on in her speech, the Empire star revealed that she has also sought mental health treatment.
“I’m here to tell you that when they tell cut and the cameras go away, I go home to real problems just like everybody else,” she said, adding that she wanted to be open about her struggles so “people go, “Oh wow she’s going through it? Well, I’m alright then.”